The mother was in shock that day in May 2018 as several law enforcement officers, some in tactical gear, stood outside the rural Winnemucca home to serve a search warrant.

“I had a miscarriage, OK? A miscarriage. Why are you guys here over a f**king miscarriage?” Rousseau responded to the deputy.

The single mother, who was already struggling to afford care for her two young boys, was dealing with complicated feelings of ambivalence and guilt about her unplanned pregnancy and stillbirth, her attorney said. Rousseau told the deputies she had been taking large quantities of cinnamon and lifting heavy things while pregnant “to have a miscarriage.”

Deputies walked to a cross that was painted red with Abel’s name written in black on a green plot behind the house, according to the police body camera footage and a police report. They dug up the remains and carried them to a law enforcement vehicle, the report said.

Two days later, Rousseau was arrested and charged with felony manslaughter before she was convicted in Nevada, where abortion is legal, under what legal experts say is a vague and broadly written statute that makes it a crime for any woman to take drugs with the intent to terminate a pregnancy. She was also charged with concealing birth, a misdemeanor, but was not convicted on that charge.

  • velma@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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    6 days ago

    Rousseau was crying while sitting on the porch steps with her arms folded across her chest as deputies told her they were trying to figure out whether this was a “viable baby that you miscarried,” the body camera footage from 2018 showed.

    Then-Deputy Jacqueline Mitcham asked her to estimate how big her belly was, prompted her to demonstrate the size of the baby with her hands, and asked her why she didn’t call 911.

    “I didn’t want to get put in the hospital,” Rousseau explained. “Who’s gonna take care of my kids?”

    She repeatedly told the deputies she didn’t know how far along she was in the pregnancy and had done nothing wrong. She explained she was just lying in bed when the stillbirth happened.

    “Have you given much thought about why that happened?” asked Mitcham.

    “Because I did everything I could to have a miscarriage,” the mother replied, saying she ingested cinnamon – which she read online could naturally end a pregnancy. She also told authorities her car broke down a lot and that she had to push the vehicle when it did.

    But doctors would later testify there was no scientific proof the actions Rousseau described had caused the stillbirth – a point the judge later cited in his order vacating her conviction.

    You could at least read the article.

    • zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      6 days ago

      This does not answer my question. No options were taken from her. She did not go to the hospital because no one would be able to take care of the kids. What an amazing argument to then force an unethical miscarriage.

      And things like “I don’t know how old the fetus was” is also on her. a) maybe don’t fuck like a bunny with so many people; b) absence of period minus roughly 4 weeks. That’s the min and max age of the fetus.

      • velma@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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        6 days ago

        The cinnamon she ingested had no part in the miscarriage.

        Should she had abandon her kids to get to the hospital instead?

        Not all women have regular periods.

        You’re clearly misinformed on this topic on several levels. Best to sit this one out with your pearl clutching.

      • YarrMatey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 days ago

        This is such a bad take. I guess I must be 3 years pregnant /s. You have no idea what it is like to be a woman and living in poverty, let alone one that is also a mother and cannot afford another kid. Slut-shaming is misogynistic as well, women are not mechanical clocks and we do not freak out over every missed period. Please reflect on this. The problem is capitalism once again, but you care more about a woman and a miscarriage instead of why she was in this predicament in the first place.

        • zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 days ago

          Come on, don’t put words into my mouth. I never did any slut-shaming. You can go fuck all you want, but please do not spread any diseases and do not get pregnant if you can’t afford a kid in the first place. Unfortunately it is not documented why she was getting pregnant. If she was raped? Hell get rid of that fetus. If she was too lazy to use protection? If you do abortion then, it is clearly unethical, no matter what.

          Additionally, she clearly knew she was pregnant. So then you clearly know the rough min/max age of the fetus. This has nothing to do with just missing a period every now any then. So how did she know she was pregnant?

          • velma@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
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            5 days ago

            Abortions aren’t unethical.

            You’re a hypocrite if you support abortion after rape but not otherwise.

            You don’t understand anything about women and pregnancy if you think it’s that easy to determine how far along one is in pregnancy.

          • YarrMatey@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            5 days ago

            maybe don’t fuck like a bunny with so many people

            This is the weird slut-shaming I was referring to.

            You can go fuck all you want, but please do not spread any diseases and do not get pregnant if you can’t afford a kid in the first place

            Women cannot control whether they get pregnant or not. No birth control is 100% effective. Even the high percentages you see are ‘perfect use’ and mean for every 100 women, 10 women actually get pregnant with ‘typical use’ while using their birth control (Source). The higher effective ones are things like the IUD and arm implant, devices that are expensive and come with their own risks but are also not 100% effective; although they’re the closest you can get. Women have all sorts of reasons for picking their chosen birth control, some cannot handle hormones at all. Even I’ve been wrecked by various birth controls. You are effectively saying sex is only for procreation and nothing else.

            If you do abortion then, it is clearly unethical, no matter what.

            There is no reason to judge a woman’s choice to abort as ethical or unethical. None. As in, it is offensive you are suggesting this. Shit happens. Most abortions are not due to rape and even knowing this, it does not fucking matter. The fact you assume she is lazy is atrocious. It isn’t documented why she was pregnant because it’s none of your business!

            And no, knowing she was pregnant does not help determine how far along she is unless she had sex and then never had sex again after that and then caught on to her missed period (assuming she has regular periods, I personally do not even before I started birth control). C’mon, please web search this because women are not identical birthing machines.

            Some women feel early pregnancy symptoms within a week or two of getting pregnant, while other women may go months with no pregnancy symptoms. Maybe your symptoms are subtle enough that you don’t recognize them. Some women have a cryptic pregnancy, which means they don’t realize they’re expecting until late in pregnancy. According to the Cleveland Clinic, about 1 in 475 women don’t know they’re pregnant until about 20 weeks, and 1 in 2,500 don’t know they’re expecting until they’re in labor. Source

      • athatet@lemmy.zip
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        6 days ago

        Alright everyone. Form a line. Make sure to ask zr0 for permission before you do any fucking.

      • Mulligrubs@lemmy.world
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        Who’s ethics? Yours?

        The fetus was incapable of knowing it was gone. It rejoined the void that it came from. Your ethics are rejected.